Grains of wheat ferment and other spices fuse with flavor. Heated by the distillery, the molecules trickle down into a copper still to combine with alcohol.This chemical processing creates Drift Distillery’s signature whiskey and vodka, San Clemente’s newest liquor and spirits operation and the second distillery in Orange County since the Prohibition Era, according to owner and operator Ryan Winter. Winter and his wife Lesli will be opening the doors of the new South Orange County business in the near future.

Congrats to Ryan and Lesli Winter and their Drift Distillery in San Clemente, OC’s second legal spirits maker since Prohibition. We profiled their story online earlier this week; for this column, I’ll focus on their first product: vodka, made from wheat that Ryan buys from his family’s farm in Kansas.

San Clemente has long reigned as one of the capitals of craft brewing in Orange County, so it's perfect that OC's second-ever distillery since Prohibition just opened in the Spanish Village by the Sea. Drift Distillery is snug inside an office park in the city's interior, just across a hilly street from Artifex Brewing. The outside, with its black windows and sans serif font, hints at the design background of owner-distiller Ryan Winter.

Stepping into Drift Distillery’s new tasting room in San Clemente, it’s easy to feel like you stepped into rural Kansas, where owners Ryan and Lesli Winter hail from. Reclaimed wood and rustic tin siding from their hundred-year-old barn line the interior, and the smell of Hard Red Winter Wheat from their parent’s farm sits in big white sacks ready to be mashed.